The everyday paradoxes !!

 Its always a pleasure to think of yourself as a philosopher and answering some of the most complex questions like what is life made up of? Well here i want to say, its full of paradoxes! Paradox is a statement that contradicts itself. 

 The first paradox is Change is the only constant. The statement says everything itself and it seems really meaningless to talk about it because its anyways true. If you don't change than you will become obsolete and such changes have to be constant in life. 

Change, before change changes you.

Second is The more you try to keep someone close, the further away you’ll push them. This is about the jealousy & insecurity in relationship. Once all that you do is done as a duty, the relationship becomes meaningless. The more you fear to lose someone, the more you move towards losing them. You cannot bind anybody because it will only suffocate them, give them space and trust them and the relationship will bear its fruits. People are like sand, if you keep them in your fist, they will slide out.

Third is The pursuit of happiness makes you unhappy. Happiness is not a destination, it is a journey. The more you run behind happiness, the more it will seem far and it will make you frustrated and anxious. You will attract happiness when you are relaxed and not thinking about happiness at all. If you do something to be happy, you will never be happy, happiness is a by-product of activities that are not aimed at getting happiness.

Fourth is The more connected you are, the more disconnected you feel. We all want to be a part of group, a circle and no one likes to be alone, its all fact. But it is also true that with increasing usage of social media, people have become more lonely and depressed. We know about everyone even without talking with them. The personal touch in every relationship is lost and it is most important to nourish the relationship. It wont be wrong to say that social media is surely connecting us to the world, but disconnecting us from ourselves. Put aside your phone while dining with family and you will know a lot about your family. Disconnect to connect.

Fifth is The more you are afraid to fail, the more you are likely to fail. Today we have become so introspecting, self-doubting and feared that we feel that every step we will take is bound to fail. The more we fear, the more is the chances to fail because we will make mistakes in fear and end up screwing it. Life is all about taking chances and grabbing opportunities and until you try, you cannot see the consequences of it. 

Sixth The more you learn, the more you realize how less you know. Every time you learn something new, it creates more questions than answers. Learning is constant and the one who thinks he knows everything is the most foolish person. Life always has an element of surprise in store and every time you set out on the quest of knowing the answer, you end up returning with questions.

Seventh The more available is something, the less you need it. We never know the worth of something until it is lost. We always tend to think inversely. We give all importance to something that we feel is scarce, while it is always in abundance. For an example, we always postpone things to tomorrow, but its on the deathbed we feel the need to do 100's of things. Humans have always been confused.

Eighth is The more you try to argue with someone, the less likely you are to convince them of your perspective. The reason for this is that most arguments are emotional in nature. They come from someone’s values or self-perceptions being violated. Logic is only used to validate those pre-existing beliefs and values. It’s rarely about the objective or logical truth as much as it is repairing people’s worldviews. For any real debate to truly exist, both parties must be making an honest concession to put their egos aside and only deal with the truth.

Ninth is Words are always provided by the listener. We often get upset about people breaking our trust or misunderstanding us. But they are not the problem, the problem lies within us as we tend to make assumptions and make our own meaning of the words spoken by other person. Words weave a very complex web and we have different definitions and understanding of words and situations based on our unique experiences. Speaker provides the words, but the listener defines them. 

The last is The more choices you have, the less satisfied you are with each one. Generally choices makes our life easy, but that too depends on the choice you make. When we have more choices we have either more to gain or more to lose, so with every available choice, our dilemma grows. Every choice forgone has a cost attached to it, thus more the choices available, less satisfaction derived.

You only live once

    “I am happy”, we all say that and we all love the state but are we actually happy? Do we know where our happiness lies? Can we overcome setbacks and smile? After attaining a sensible age or lets say late teenage, we start losing innocence due to our encounters with demons. Demons may sound bit exaggerated but somewhere its true. Double faced people, mistrust, hookups, breakups, bitching, politics, priority etc. are the most commonly used words in this phase. We come across many people towards whom we are naturally attracted and drawn to and we suddenly start filling water sprinklers on our face and heart beats pounding to that newly discovered feeling of “love”. I don’t remember when we felt so when our moms secretly gave us chocolate or our dad got us a new bike ! 

 Well but at this age we all have some emotional deficit and we want someone special to be by us, who will support us, love us, care for us, chat with us whole day. But in this process we often tend to ignore other people around us. Suddenly our priority and attention is towards one person only. A few days of chat makes someone more important than your friends and family. In this phase you start drifting from everyone and often we don’t know that the way leads to the valley of darkness and emptiness. The other thing we may come across is bitching or being literally selfish. We suddenly get the shock of life when we hear that the person whom you considered your close friend, whom you trusted so blindly bitched about you or used you to get his or her work done. Well its common in this phase. What you need is an eye opener. You cant live in the same childhood innocence where you thought everyone is good and nice. Then a phase will come where you will be deprived of your best friend because he or she suddenly got a partner and the partner can’t share the importance with you. And suddenly you find yourself alone in the midway. Or it may so happen that you or your best friend get another friend and your priorities shift and suddenly you lie nowhere. You stand as a loser on both sides. The worst thing of today is mobile phones. It is one of the most influential factors in making your life in teenage. Due to mobiles the personalized touch in every relationship is lost. From love, friendship to breakups, everything happens on mobile phone. Gone are the days when friends used to meet at canteens or road side stall for tea, or when love happened between eyes. The emotional touch is losing due to mobile phones. Mobile phones have drifted people away from each other and somewhere pushed us towards the most dreaded term of teenage, “loneliness”. Loneliness, the word itself is so depressing that we don’t want to write it. But it’s the most common phenomenon these days. When you are in relationship you ignore your friends and family and when you breakup, you can’t find anyone standing by you. You regret leaving your best friend because your partner wanted so. You can’t find anyone with whom you can talk or share anything, you simply can’t trust people because of your mistakes and encounters with such people who have imposed a mistrusting mentality on you. Many a times you will out of nowhere feel that you haven’t got anything inspite of a healthy friend list or numerous groups on whatsapp. Ever wondered why this feeling? 
The sole reason is that you become dependent on certain person and so does your happiness. You ignore and let go the other little happiness that come by. Early morning movies with friends, dinner with family, craziness with that one best friend, reading books, doing what you love, becoming love guru for your friend, etc. you lose the craziness in you and your world becomes pivotal to one person. 

People are mouldable, they will change according to convenience, but it will impact your life most. You give up everything for a person whom you have known for merely few months!! Always remember people will change and you too will change, but its upon you that how you want to change, positively or negatively. You can either become cynical and never trust anybody or you build yourself such that nobody breaks your trust and even if anyone does, you remain unaffected. People tend to take us for granted when we are emotional or caring or naïve, its good but after certain point you have to take care of yourself and not become a puppet of someone’s convenience. Ego, attitude, self-obsession etc. are some of the necessities in this phase. You cannot let everyone come and take place in your life, nor can you tolerate shit of every dog. The one person that will stay with you unconditionally is you yourself. Love yourself no matter what, respect yourself and believe in yourself, because everyone out there is waiting to stomp you under their feet, they don’t value your tears, but you have to value your smile. Life is a harsh teacher. It teaches us things in a way which we will never like, but it prepares us for the life coming ahead. So take your past a lesson, laugh on it, and think how can you make your future better to never let that smile fade away. 


  Always keep smiling because in the darkest moment, a single ray of sun can lit up the world. Your smile can do wonders then. You only live once, live it to the fullest and don’t regret anything

Find the pearl...

   One of the most popular topic on which everyone seems to get philosophical is “Life”. What is life? How is life? What to do with life? Etc. are some of the questions that are tried to be answered. But yet it still remains a mystery that what is life and how is life!!

   People today have become too busy, too ambitious, too competitive and too selfish to live their life. Today everyone is in search for happiness which is now equivalent to money and success but nobody is in pursuit of happiness.
“Happiness is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy.”

  We are so busy in counting how much we have that we often forget what we have. When was the last time you had a solitary walk? When did you last see the sunset with your partner? When did you last enjoy dancing and singing? When did you last spent quality time with your friends? When was the last time you shared happiness with your parents & family? There are many such questions whose answers will make you feel sorry about yourself and force you to think where you are heading! 
“The world is your oyster. It's up to you to find the pearls.” 
― Chris Gardner, The Pursuit of Happyness
      
   Life does not give everything to everyone but it’s upon us how we make the most of what we have! Don’t just stick to work, don’t keep complaining about what you don’t have, don’t be negative, take a pause and look around what you have. Appreciate what you have and develop an attitude of gratitude, for you don’t know that you are living a life which is someone’s dream

“Wealth can also be that attitude of gratitude with which we remind ourselves everyday to count our blessings.” 
― Chris Gardner, The Pursuit of Happyness

  Go away from the daily hustles of life, the unending battle of wealth you are engaged in and look around how much happiness is in store for you. It takes eyes of a complacent person to spot the beauty around. The setting sun, the flowing river, the chirping birds, the smile of a baby, the hug of a loved one, tears of joy, moments of fun, dance of wildness and joy of heart, these are the things that will make you happy. No doubt there will be struggles too but you have to fight and overcome those struggles to discover the pearl, for if not anything else life is beautiful !!